Work machines can be used in many different applications, including those in the areas of construction, agriculture, landscaping, and mining. To perform these applications, a work tool is typically mounted to work machine lift arms or other articulated members of the work machine and connect to one or more hydraulic and/or electrical and/or mechanical system of the work machine.
Many work machines are designed to receive and operate a vast number of work tools. One such work machine is known generically as a “skidsteer.” A skidsteer, skid loader, or skidsteer loader, is a small, rigid-frame, engine-powered machine with lift arms and a mounting interface used to receive and attach to a wide variety of labor-saving tools or attachments. Examples of work tools for a skidsteer include augers, backhoes, bale spears, blades, brooms, brush cutters, buckets, cold planers, compactors, forks, hammers, material handling arms, mulchers, rakes, saws, snow blowers, snowplows, snow pushers, stump grinders, tillers, and trenchers.
Skidsteer loaders are typically four-wheel vehicles with the wheels mechanically locked in synchronization on each side. The left-side drive wheels can be driven independently of the right-side drive wheels. The wheels typically have no separate steering mechanism and hold a fixed straight alignment on the body of the machine. By operating the left and right wheel pairs at different speeds, the machine turns by skidding, or dragging its fixed-orientation wheels across the ground. Skidsteer loaders are sometimes equipped with tracks in lieu of the wheels and such a vehicle is known as a multi-terrain loader.
In order to maximize the value of machine ownership, it is desirable that work machine equipment be compatible with a large variety of work tools and adaptable to a large variety of operator preferences. Since the control requirements of a selected work tool is dependent on its function, one standard configuration is poorly suited for optimal operator control of all possible work tool attachments.
Currently, a small number of operator interfaces, one type of which will be referred to herein as “joysticks,” fitted to the work machine at the time of manufacture have to accommodate a range of alternative work tools and operators. Complicated harness adapters are necessary to retrofit current joysticks, which compromise adaptation of the work machine to different work tools. It is also labor intensive and expensive to swap control bases and joysticks on a completed machine.